Damned
by Eric J. Dantes
Summary: Harry Potter changed that night and for the better. For the first time he's seeing the facts laid out and being selfish


"I wish there had been peace…I wish that it had all ended in that one moment."

"Do you regret it?"

"Of course not, where would we all be if I hadn't, dead…that's where. I know it wasn't my responsibility. My job was done, finished for all intents and purposes. But the war…the war was far from over."

"Then why do it alone?"

"Because I was willing…because I was the only one who could…"

"I would disagree, there were aurors more than capable of –"

"Believe me when I say that I was the only one that could. I knew who they were, where they were, what they did on a daily basis, who they loved, who they feared…I was the only one that could bring justice. I was the only one with the power to bring them all down."

"What about…them? They were willing, they could have helped."

The laugh was…haunting, empty of humor, cold almost, "They…they were nothing. They were nothing but leeches, doing more harm than good to me."

"Come now, they were your friends…"

"Friends, _friends?_ They are _not_ my friends, never were as it turns out. Tell me…would friends walk out on you? Turn your back on you when you needed them most? Call you mad? Called you a fool? Keep secrets to themselves…"

"They did it to protect you – "

"HE KNEW! He knew…and so did she, but they both played me," there was a sudden crash as the coffee table was blown to pieces, not for the first time, "they lied to me. They played the cards, took a gamble. To them it may seem that they won, but it backfired on them. The tables turned oh so suddenly haven't they?"

"I believe then we have reached the source of our problem then, the initial point so to say. Why don't you just go through it, I know you have refused to tell the story but I believe in order for you to heal we must begin from that night Mr. Potter."

Harry's eyes glowed in the darkness an eerie green, a dark mirth, "What is there to heal doctor? What problem do you speak of?"

The doctor facial expression faltered for a second before the calm demeanor returned, "Whenever you're ready Mr. Potter…."

"Fine I'll humor you, I figure it's about time the real story got out anyways instead of people just taking stabs into the dark."

* * *

Harry caught the pendant as it was tossed towards him and looked to Hermione in confusion, "How...," he croaked, his throat was incredibly dry at the moment, "…how long?"

Hermione stood silently looking at Harry a pained look in her eyes, "I'm sorry but we thought that it was best if we kept it to ourselves." She moved to hug him only for him to step back.

"Leave."

Hermione froze. She was in shock; she hadn't been expecting this response, at all, "Harry you can't mean that."

Harry looked her straight in the eye; emerald met brown, "I don't ever want to see you again."

"But Harry I chose you!" panic was evident as she spoke, tears once again renewed.

"Fine," she sighed with relief, "I'll leave," Hermione stood motionless as she watched Harry throw the locket around his neck, grab only a sweater and his wand before almost sprinting out of the tent. Hermione snapped out of her stupor immediately and made chase for him. She only caught sight for him for a moment as he apparated away the moment he was outside the wards.

Hermione fell to her knees. It was over. Their mission…the war, it was all lost and it was all because of her and Ron. They had damned the world.

Harry apparated to the only place he could possibly think of, the Dursley household. He found it to be void of life. In retrospect it was actually a good idea to hide here. Everyone knew he hated the place and for all intents and purposes had sworn never to return yet here he was once again on the doorstep. It was almost like déjà vu...

Harry reached up to knock on the door only to stop, he already knew nobody was home and no one would be there for a very long time. So taking a deep breath he turned the knob and entered the house.

It was eerily quiet in the house and Harry could never remember it ever being this quiet in the house ever. But instead of it being a discomforting quiet, Harry found it to be almost welcoming. He walked over to the staircase and stared at the little door that had once led to his room. He wondered if it had changed much since he had moved out. He reached to the open it before he stopped millimeters from it. No…it was best to leave his past exactly where it was, it the past.

Harry moved to the kitchen and sat down facing the window. Ominous grey clouds darkened the world outside and Harry found his thoughts roaming, thinking of his past, his present and his future. He thought of his years at Hogwarts, he thought of all the people he had met in his life and for the first time questioned his decision that September night when he had chosen Gryffindor over Slytherin.

Would he be on the run right now? Or would he be standing next to Voldemort, his ever faithful servant as many from the noble house of Slytherin grew to do.

No, he would not be standing next to the deranged man. Voldemort would not chance and Harry would have never have chosen that path. But it did lead to him to wonder where he would stand…

Powerful, he would have been powerful. Harry couldn't come to another conclusion. For all the hate that Slytherin received, one thing was certain, they weren't weaklings and this had nothing to do with being a pureblood. No, it had to do with the fact that beyond everything it was what they strived for; to be powerful and cunning. They had ambition, he didn't.

From there his mind branched to the topic of magic, when it came to terms of spells, Harry knew few. In fact the more he thought about it the more he came to realize that he could count on one hand the amount of spells that he would use in battle. Moody was right, he needed to expand his spell range. No wonder the death eaters had been able to identify which one of the many Harrys was him, when you use the same spells over and over again it doesn't matter who he was disguised as, you could point him out of a line immediately.

I have to expand his knowledge. He had to learn spells, hundreds if that's what it took. 'Light' or 'Dark' he came to the conclusion that in order for all of this to end, he would have to dirty his hands in order to come out on top. If Voldemort was bad, he had to be worse. If Dumbledore had been powerful, he had to be more, if Grindelwald had been cruel; he had to crueler, if Hermione was smart, he had to be smarter.

Harry sighed he had no idea where to start. He knew he couldn't freely walk around buying books. He would have to steal. He would have to find people to train him. Stores that would sell to him, no questions asked, in fact if he could deal under a cloak that would be best.

Suddenly Harry was struck with a thought. Grindelwald…he was still alive, old but alive. Maybe he could convince him to help him. Germany was a ways off and to tell the truth he had no idea how he was going to leave the island without getting noticed but once he was off these shores Harry Potter would no longer have an identity problem. That was it, he would have to leave. In order to save them later, he would have to leave them now.

Harry steeled himself and stood. He walked over to the front door once again. Less than 10 minutes after he had entered he was leaving. It was for the best, what could he do here? Nothing.

He gave the dark house one last look again. He started to laugh, a good hearty laugh, he had pointlessly gone there really. Yet there was one thing he did here that he couldn't have done anywhere else, he came to terms with his past. He had at long last let it all go. He closed the door and walked down the road.

He reached the street sign and stared at it. He then glanced back to number 4. It was strange but for the first time he could look at the house and instead of feeling hate or remorse, he felt…joy. Harry smiled and popped away.

* * *

The trip had been surprisingly easy. Getting out of Britain via muggle transportation had in fact been the ideal way to get out undetected. Voldemort was counting on the fact that Harry had this whole "save people' thing to bother monitoring the muggles and their transportation system. It was a shame really, being that Voldemort was a halfblood and should have at least kept one eye on it.

Harry glanced around, from what he knew Grindelwald was in Germany , but that was about it. In fact now that he thought about it he wasn't even sure if the prison was in Germany, he had just assumed it was there considering that the war had been about the same time as the muggle World War II and it only seemed logical. The more Harry thought about it the more he realized that he had dived into this blind

"Fuck me," Harry murmured to himself as he began to roam the streets. Another realization hit him as he walked around; he had no idea how to access Magical Germany. Harry growled with anger, how stupid could he possibly be?

Harry sat on a bench thinking to himself, somehow he had to figure this whole mess out and the foremost problem was how to access Magical Germany, from there everything should be easier. Suddenly a thought hit him, the Knight Bus! If Britain had one Germany surely had to have something of the like.

Harry stepped onto the edge of the sidewalk and pointed his wand out to the sky. A split second later a loud bang resounded as a double-decker bus stopped in front of him. Harry wanted to jump with joy as he saw the bus, thank the gods for public transportation.

The door opened to reveal a man in his forties with a big smile, "Guten Tag! Wohin?"

Harry stopped smiling when he heard the man speak, "Oh shit, I don't know german…"

"Ah British I see, we've been getting a lot of you lately with the whole Voldemort fiasco," the man smiled sadly, "where can I take you young man?"

Harry sighed with relief, he was doing that a lot lately he noted, "Um, just to the nearest magical uh…hub I guess? I need to get to Gringotts, an inn and a shopping area with a lot of shops."

"Ah, you need to go to Amsel Jaeger Alley, no better place in all of Germany to find all your needs and more if ye know what I mean," he said with a wink to Harry who smiled and handed the man a galleon. The man reach to give Harry change bit he waved it off

"Please keep it," Harry said as he sat adjacent to the man, happy that this bus at least had normal seats. The man smiled at him and gave his a curt nod

"Hold onto somethin' here we go!" and with that the bus began to move once again at extreme speeds. Harry happily noted that the man was a considerably better driver than Stan, not that he had anything against the other one, he just preferred this one. "Name is Hans Kunze by the way!" Hans yelled over the roar of the engine, "you can just call be Hans though, all meh friends do."

Harry contemplated giving his name, he figured he was never going to see the man ever again and since they _were_ outside of Britain he thought why not, "Harry Potter."

The bus suddenly snapped out as stop, "Move the way out of the way ya stupid cat!" Hans yelled at the cat standing in the middle of the road before he turned to Harry, "Well, it's an honor to have ya on my bus there Mr. Potter. Heard great things about ya, woulda' thought you'd be back there showin' ol' Voldemort whose boss once again though to tell ya the truth."

Harry looked embarrassed, "I'm here to gather some supplies, knowledge and hopefully reinforcements to fight. Right now I can't walk around getting the supplies I need at Diagon Alley, with all the Death Eaters walking around tormenting people."

Hans nodded and started to drive, "Makes sense to me, ya should be fine around these parts. Just don't go around handing out your identity so freely, might run into someone lookin' for a reward or somethin'."

Harry nodded, "Thank you, I'll be sure to follow that advice."

"No problem, in fact I think I might know someone who might be able to help ya with what you're looking for. No not everything he carries is exactly legal and its best not to ask how he got the stuff but its cheap and quality stuff. He's my brother, he goes by the Die Klaue des Löwen these days but his real name's Rupert," Hans rolled his eyes, "apparently the name was not mysterious enough or somethin' of the like. I think he just doesn't like his name, cause it makes him sound like a candy man" he saw with a smile and a wink.

Harry laughed, it certainly sounded like the name of a man who raised cats or something, "Where can I find him."

"He should be easy to spot, he usually stays at the Lion's Den," Hans said as he took a hard left, "goes the with the name ya see? He thinks it goes with the whole persona or somethin' this coming from the man who enjoys a good romance novel."

"Oh you're a muggleborn?" Harry asked

"Yup, we're twins ya see, which is why he's also magical and all," Hans said as he stopped once again because of a cat, "stupid cats I swear they are the lord's curse to human beings! Look at the thing! It's mocking me!"

Harry glanced over the dashboard to look at the cat. Harry could swear that the cat was smirking at them! Harry found that he was beginning to agree with Hans now that he thought about it, he really didn't like cats.

Once they had resumed driving Hans continued the conversation, "Anyways, anything else you need to know or I can help you with?"

"Uh yes, could you perhaps tell me where Nurmengard is?" Harry asked

The bus came to a sudden stop and Harry wondered if there was another cat on the road only to find that it had been stopped because Hans was looking at him stunned.

"Why in heaven's name would you want to know where that is?" he asked

Harry was beginning to panic, "Uh, I was hoping to get a little help from Grindelwald. I figure since he was once all powerful and a dark lord he would know how to take down Voldemort," Harry said.

"Well I commend ya for planning but it won't work. Grindelwald won't help anyone, the man is nothing but a loon today," Hans said as he continued

"Please sir, I have to try…" Harry pleaded

Hans seemed to be debating with himself, "Alright, but don't tell anyone I told ya where it is," Harry nodded fervently, "Nurmengard is a bit of a curiosity in itself ya see. Technically it's in Germany and it isn't." Harry was confused as the man continued, "It's built on a boundary ya see, genius really how and where it was built. It's built right on top of where Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria meet. It was perfect placin' because none of the countries could attack it without causin' a riot by the other two. Once ya get there you'll find Grindelwald on the top floor, rumor has it he's the only one left there these days."

"Thank you," Harry said grateful that the man was helping him so much. Suddenly the bus came to a stop in front of the Lion's Den.

"There ya are Mr. Potter, hope ya find what you're lookin' for," Hans said with a nod of his head.

"Thank you very much Hans," Harry said as he stepped off the bus

"It was nothin' there Mr. Potter, ya be sure to say hi to Rupert for me," Hans said with a smile and a wink.

Harry nodded as he turned to look at the inn, it was certainly a lot brighter than the Cauldron. Harry entered the inn and looked around, it was well lit with people laughing and drinking merrily. Harry walked over to the bar and sat looking for Rupert. The bar tender, a beautiful young lady, walked over to him giving him a dazzling smile, "You're not from around here are you?"

"How'd you know?" Harry asked surprised

"Everyone here is a regular except you and you look a bit like a lost puppy," she said with a wink as she turned for a moment to pour a drink for a man who had come up to the bar for a moment, "here." She handed Harry a glass with an eerily green tint to it, "don't be afraid, it's just Troll's drool."

She laughed at Harry reaction as he turned slightly green himself, "Um I'll pass."

"You know its impolite to reject a lady," she said with a pout, "here I'll drink one myself as she poured herself a drink and held it up waiting up for him.

Harry reluctantly picked up the glass and clinked it against hers and quickly downed it. The first think he noted that it was incredibly thick, in fact it felt like he was swallowing a slightly watered down jam, and it _burned _all the way down. He thought firewhiskey had been bad but this one hands down demolished it.

The girl laughed as she watched Harry, "I know, it takes a couple to get used to it. Don't worry, it's not really troll's droll, just the same consistency."

"I once fought a troll, I was eleven," Harry said as the burning seemed to fade a bit.

She looked impressed, "Wow tough guy huh?" she said with a sexy wink.

Harry laughed, "Not really, it was more like I was incredibly stupid at the time. I was trying to save a frie –girl I was trying to save a girl."

The girl noted that Harry was going to say friends but had changed his mind at the last moment, "Hm…my name is Anneliese, I get off in 15…" she trailed off looking at him expectantly.

"Harry…McGonagall," Harry said quickly.

"So Harry, I'll meet you in 15?" she asked

"Uh, I'm actually looking for someone," he said, she looked disappointed before he quickly continued, "I'm looking for a guy named Die Klaue des Löwen, his brother told me that I could get what I needed from him."

Anneliese smiled, "You mean Rupert?" she glanced over his shoulder, "Hey Rupert! There someone here looking for you!"

"My name is Die Klaue des Löwen! Come one Annie!," A man with a large and overbearing cloak sauntered over to them and sat down, before he said in an obviously modified voice, "the zebra lays with the gazelle at midnight."

Harry looked at Anneliese confusion on his face, "it's his stupid code thing, he thinks he some mysterious and cool dealer," Anneliese explain mirth all over her face.

The man pulled down to reveal an exact copy of Hans causing Harry to laugh, "Come one Anneliese, how am I supposed to maintain my image if you're always doing that! See, even this young man is laughing at me!"

"Sorry!" Harry said between laughs, "I just met your brother so it's kinda funny."

Rupert turned to Harry, "Hans? How's he doing?"

"Good, he says hi," Harry said, "anyways I'm in need of a few items. They aren't exactly legal and some of them, I won't lie, are very dark books."

"Hey man, you need it, I can get it," Rupert said, "do you have a list? Makes it bit easier to figure out prices and the amount of time needed to gather the stuff."

"Well actually I don't, I was hoping you could just get me one of everything you can get your hands on that's geared towards a war like setting. Spells, weapons, potions, ingredients, I need them all," Harry said

Rupert whistled, "Now what would you need with all that stuff?"

"Hans said you wouldn't ask questions. That if I asked, you'd be able to get it and not want any names," Harry said.

"Well let's talk price then, to gather so many items comes with a hefty fee," Rupert said

"How much we talking?" Harry asked

"At least half," Rupert said

"Million?" Harry asked. Rupert nodded, "done. When can you have most of the items?"

Rupert was surprised, "Well meet me here tomorrow morning, I should be able to have a rather large package for you then with most of the stuff and over the next few days I have other stuff coming in so you can take a look at it."

"Done, in fact how about we set up a little deal," Harry suddenly said formulating a small plan in his mind, "why don't I pay you 3 million up front and you just supply me with whatever I need, when I need it. That way it comes out even for the both of us."

"You sir….may call me Rupert whenever you damn well feel like it," Rupert said, "Annie," he said turning to her, "why don't you get me and uh…um"

"Harry"

"Harry and bottle of your finest Troll's Drool!"

Harry paled at the thought of having to drink the stuff again, "uh actually I think me and Anneliese have a date right?"

Anneliese smiled, "that's right, sorry Rupert but we'll see you tomorrow morning," before she pulled of her apron and jumped over the counter, "maybe we should shift it to a lunch meeting though," she said with a wink to Harry who blushed a deep red, getting what she was implying.

Rupert wiggled his eyes as he pulled a bottle for under the counter, "Fine I'll finish this baby myself. Remember to use a contraceptive charm you two!" he called after them as Anneliese pulled Harry towards the door.

* * *

**Review, should be an interesting story that both dark and humorous at times. As for the girl, I'm still not sure it will be Daphne, its up to you to decide though it just may be two or three**


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